This committee is no longer active. It was created as a task group to help develop the Municipal Vulnerability Plan and Community Workshops. 

In June 2017, the Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs awarded the Town of Arlington a Municipal Vulnerability Preparedness (MVP) Planning Grant in the amount of $23,000 to complete a community resilience planning process to address the impacts of climate change. The grant allowed the Town to examine its strengths and vulnerabilities, as well as identify priority resilience-building actions. The grant process was coordinated by the Municipal Vulnerability Preparedness core group composed of Town Officials, business leaders, and community members, and was led by Department of Planning and Community Development staff.

At the core of the process was the Community Resilience Building Workshop, which involved stakeholders representing a broad-cross section of the community in an intensive 8-hour forum designed to assess local vulnerabilities to hazardous weather events and develop action steps for addressing them. The top priority identified through the workshop is addressing flooding in the Mill Brook Corridor, which has recently and historically caused significant damage to homes, businesses, and other properties in the brook’s vicinity.

The grant award enabled the Town to hire Kleinfelder to coordinate the workshop and develop the Summary of Findings Report, which was submitted to the state in June 2018 following a public listening session held on June 11, 2018.

Building off the success of the MVP Planning Grant, the Town was awarded an MVP Action Grant in the amount of $399,420 to develop and implement ecologically sensitive flood management measures in the Mill Brook Corridor. This project will build off of Phase 1 of the Mill Brook /Wellington Park Project, which is a cooperative effort with the Mystic River Watershed Association (MyRWA),funded by the Community Preservation Act (CPA) to improve public access and recreational opportunities in the Mill Brook Corridor at Wellington Park, and in other areas of the park. Phase II of this project will begin in July and is supported by an additional $171,420 in CPA funding which will be used as match funds for the MVP Action Grant.

For more information, please contact Emily Sullivan, Environmental Planner/ Conservation Agent with Arlington’s Department of Planning and Community Development, at: esullivan@town.arlington.ma.us.